DEMOCRACY, IRAN, and STEPHEN MILLER

Changed the title of my posting today several times.  

• Why Democracy?  Still celebrating the recovery of the USA on November 3.  
• Why Iran?  Looks like they "won" their war against the USA and Israel.
• One fallout from the midterms is that President Donald Trump will be stuck with a Democratic Congress that will force him to end this war.

• 
  Netanyahu is in big trouble.
• Polymarket has Gadi Eisenkot at 62.7% to become the next prime minister of Israel.
• Kalshi has Eisenkot at 49%,  with NO ONE 37% and Netanyahu 8%.

Then there is Stephen Miller, who on Monday will become the new Chief of Staff to President Donald Trump:

• Miller, only 41 years old, is Trump's attack bulldog.
• He represents the epitome of cruelty in the White House, even more so than Trump.

• 
  “Stephen Miller is a dangerous xenophobe and reckless extremist who has American blood on his hands,” tweeted top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).
• He is why ICE is so hated.
• So if the President wanted to make peace and work with the incoming Democratic Congress, forget about that.

• 
  Miller.
• Was born in Santa Monica, California, and is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent.  His family escaped Russian pogroms and the Holocaust.
• Graduated from Duke University.
• Has disparaged Marco Rubio.
• 
  At Steve Bannon's behest, began writing speeches for Trump in 2016.  Wrote Trump's first inaugural address.  Drafted the letter firing FBI Director James Comey.
• Captained the White House assault on Harvard and Columbia.

• 
  Is far-right and anti-immigration.  A white-nationalist and libertarian.
• Urged invading and occupying Greenland.
• Strong supporter of Israel.
• In 2020 married Katie Waldman, then press secretary to Veep Mike Pence.  Trump attended wedding.  Has four children.
• The current administration moved his family to officers quarters on a nearby military base.
• Trump calls him Weird Stephen.

So why did Trump choose Miller for this pivotal role?

• He is shorter than Trump and bald.
• Here is an early video of why.
• And another.

My Saturday postings have tended to be about entertainment doings.  Happy days are what I emphasize.  In a way, this is what I am doing today, but with a focus on politics.

• About that lame duck session from November 9 to December 25.
• Congress left DC without finishing up government funding, including the annual defense and farm bills.  So they need to do that.

• 
  There is that December 11 date when Federal funding runs out.  Interesting to see what happens.
• Maybe here is where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gets impeached.  Then Trump can quickly replace him with a still Republican-controlled Congress.

• 
  About the upcoming 120th Congress, which convenes on 3January2027.
• All signs look good for historic Democratic dominance.
• The Senate will be at 54 Democrats to 44 Republicans, until post-election counts finalize the tally.
• This final Senate count will probably be 56 Democrats and 44 Republicans, with a 12-seat cushion for Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.  Why?

• 
  Betting sites have both Mississippi and Alaska senate races going to Democrats.
• Betting sites?  Yes.
• People don't bet on a 99% winner unless there is certainty.
• These people who place money on something like this do so because there is an overwhelming reason.
• They know where the votes will go from the counting of post-election ballots.

• 
  Both Kalshi and Polymarket have Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola and Mississippi Democrat Scott Colom between 94%-99%.

• 
  From NBC, the final House count will probably be 259 Democrats and 176 Republicans, or an 83-seat majority.
• Kalshi has Chuck Schumer as Majority Leader at 90% and Polymarket at 86.  Chris Van Hollen trades between 7-9%, but he has publicly ruled out any interest.

• 
  Presidential candidates on 7November2028 (average of Kalshi and Polymarket)
• John Ossoff 23%
• JD Vance  14%
• Marco Rubio  11.5%
• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez  10.5%
• Gavin Newson  8.2%
• Ron DeSantis  6.3%
• Andy Beshear  3.5%
• Kamala Harris  3.4%
• James Talarico  3.0%
• Donald Trump  1.7%.....yes, DONALD TRUMP.
• Both Kalshi and Polymarket predict a total Democratic sweep of the White House, House and Senate in the 2028 election.

• 
  Project 2027
• Created in December of 2025.
• Rather than retribution, the lead effort will be to enhance those social matters relating to affordability, healthcare, consumer protection (tariffs?) and civil liberties, including investigations dealing with corruption, national security, AI/data centers and so forth.

• 
  The new Democratic Congress will focus on accountability and affordability, not revenge.
• Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, chaired by Robert Garcia of California, will, with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, prioritize targets of opportunities.  These targets will include:

• 
  Donald Trump, his family and links.
• Secretaries of Defense Pete Hegseth. Health Robert F. Kennedy, and Education Linda McMahon.
• Attorney General Todd Blanche will get special attention later in the 120th Congress.  If this hasn't happened yet, Democrats will want to air out the Epstein matter heading into the 2028 elections.

• 
  On the matter of impeachment.
• The House initiates the charge, only needing a majority vote to impeach someone.
• The Senate tries the case, but needs a two-thirds vote to convict and remove the individual from office.  Or 67 votes.  The Chief Justice of the U.S. presides.
• Three U.S. Presidents presidents have been impeached by the House and acquitted by the Senate:  Andrew Johnson (1868), Bill Clinton (1998) and Donald Trump (twice, in 2019 and 2021).
• Richard Nixon resigned before the House acted.
• Impeachments of cabinet officers are rare.
• 
  In any case Defense Secretary Pete Hegsmeth is in danger of losing his office.  He seems to be the scapegoat for the Iran War.
• Maybe by just resigning soon to allow President Trump to get a better Defense secretary for him during the lame duck session.
• Chances are that Hegseth, Kennedy and McMahon will not be impeached.  There are more important priorities for the incoming Congress.

Heck of a great list of NCAA football games today (all Eastern time):

• noon         #9 BYU (7-1) at #3 Utah (8-0) on ABC
• noon         #7 Texas (6-2) at #18 Missouri (6-2) on ESPN
• noon         #8 UCLA (8-0) at Minnesota (   on Fox
• 3:30PM    #5 Alabama at LSU on ABC
• 3:30PM    #23 Oregon at Ohio State on CBS
• 6:15PM    #6 Kentucky at Tennessee on ESPN
• 7:30PM    #1 Miami (8-0) at #11 Notre Dame (7-1) on NBC
• 7:30PM    #2 Georgia at Mississippi on ABC
• 9:30PM    #103 Hawaii (2-6) at #136 University of Texas at El Paso (1-7) on FS1

Yes, Hawaii has not had a good year, but won their last game at the University of Northern Illinois.  But UNI's record for the year is 0-8.  Yet, if Hawaii beats UTEP today, and upsets North Dakota State University next week, they have a shot at winning their final two games to be eligible for a bowl bid!  There are 36 bowl games this year, plus the 11 College Football Playoff Games.

I might add that the University of Hawaii basketball team beat Bethesda last night 116-44, and is undefeated this year.  Who is Bethesda?  Don't ask.

To close, there is a tropical storm a few hundred miles south of Honolulu.  It will be Hurricane Pena by Wednesday, but the predictive path is westward.

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THE BEST TRAIN TRIPS?

There was an unexpected stock market correction yesterday, hoping it wasn't the beginning of a crash.  Wall Street suffered its worst loss since 2020, when COVID came.  Nasdaq was particularly crushed.

• 
  Bet you don't know much about this index?
• Launched in 1971 as the world's first automated stock exchange.
• World, meaning 51 countries.
• Lists 5500 companies.
• The Nasdaq Composite Index has 3370 stocks.

• 
  The Nasdaq-100 includes 100 corporate entities, but features 101 or more tickers because companies sometimes issue multiple class of common stock. Is worth between $31 trillion and $41.4 trillion, depending how free-float and constituent market caps are aggregated.
• To promote diversity, listed companies are required to have female directors on their board, and members from underrepresented groups....or explain their absence.
• 
  Since the close yesterday of the Nasdaq-100 at 26,629.81, the index has dropped 6.36% from its all-time high on 6October2026.
• Thus, the market value of the Nasdaq-100 dropped anywhere from $2 trillion to $2.6 trillion.
• Keep in mind that a trillion dollars would:  
• pay the U.S. defense budget or 
• 2.5 million U.S. homes or 
• value of every major U.S. sports league team or 
• the combined 2500 aircraft fleet of Delta, United and American Airlines or
• the value of Elon Musk, but 500 Taylor Swifts.
• A trillion seconds would take us back to 29,000 BC.
• A trillion $1 bills laid end-to-end would take us around the Earth around a 1000 times.
• Well, the market will have a bad week, but it apears not to be crashing: 

On Thursday, chip stocks Nvidia (NVDA), AMD (AMD), Micron (MU), and Sandisk (SNDK) recouped some losses from the prior session's broad selloff, which sent the VIX Volatility Index (^VIX) up 70% to 28.

On to my topic of the day, which is part two to my posting on Monday, indicating that train trips are very safe.  If you plan to take a long train ride, might as well go on the best, although these can sometimes be ridiculously expensive.  Condé Nast has annually polled its readers for 39 years.  Here is the result for 2026. 

• Yes, there are the big ticket, bucket list journeys we all know and aspire to book for ourselves one day. But this year, there were a surprising number of newcomers, including some no-frills public transit you can hop on for the price of a decent lunch–no reservations, no fanfare, just a ticket and a seat by the window. Here’s how you, the readers, ranked them: These are the best train trips in the world. 
• You can read the article for details, but let me focus on a few I've been on, or would like to someday.

• 
  #16  Canyon Spirit by Rocky Mountaineer.
• I think we will catch this train as part of our Route 66 trip next year.
• Only two days long, but we were on a Rocky Mountaineer in Canada earlier this year, and was impressed.

• 
  #15  The Canadian, connecting Vancouver and Toronto.
• Did this in 2017, from Vancouver to Toronto.
• Largely repeated this earlier this year, from Toronto to Vancouver.

• 
  #14  The Vietage by Anantara, from Danang to Quy Nhon, Vietnam.
• Only 6 hour ride
• Features French cuisine, local caviar, etc.
• I mention this train because we will be on another luxury in Vietnam for a week later this year.
• 
  #13  Royal Scotsman, Scotland.
• A Belmond train, from Edinburgh throrugh the Scottish Highlands.
• Been thinking about this train for decades, for I had a period in my life when I spent several summers in a row in Edinburgh. 

• 
  #12  Napa Valley Wine Train, California.
• Between Napa and St. Helena, 36 miles, 6 hours.
• 4-course meal, plus tasting stops at Charles Krug and V. Sattui Wineries.
• Again, been through Napa a dozen times, and always wondered if this was worth the cost of around $500/person.
• 
  #11  Eastern & Oriental Express, Southeast Asia.
• A Belmond train.
• Took this train from Bangkok to Singapore 15 years ago.
• Narrow track rail, so very shaky.  Hard to walk around.  Dangerous.
• But great.
• But cost around $3500 for 3 nights and 4 days.
• #10  Vietnam Central Heritage Connection.  Only three hours long, but I mention it because, again, Vietnam.
• 
  #7  Hiram Bingman, Peru.
• A Belmond train.
• Named after Hawaii-born Hiram Bingham, who is credited with the first westerner to find Machu Picchu, in 1911.
• Cuzco to Machu Picchu roundtrip.
• A little more than $1000 covers the train ride, with fine cuisine and drinks, plus a guided tour through Machu Picchu.
• Plan to do this if I ever go back.  My experience?  Visited there in 2011.  Read about my grand adventure.  And it was all of that, and more.

• 
  #6  The Ghan, Australia.  I wrote about this train on 5October2026.
• #3  Rocky Mountaineer, North America.
• We had a grand time on this train earlier this year.
• Is the largest privately-owned premium tourist train in the world.

• 
  #1  Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, Europe.

Year after year, the world’s most iconic locomotive continues to be a Readers’ Choice Awards favorite, and a standard-setter in luxury travel generally. The decadent interiors are a fantasy of 1920s Art Deco design, but it’s the impeccable service that keeps this train firmly ensconced in a class of its own. Bags are whisked off the platform and magically reappear in your cabin, no glass ever runs empty, and the beds seem to make themselves anytime you step outside of your cabin. By day, you can revel in the scenery of French countrysides and Swiss mountain scenes, and by night, the formal dress code feels anything but stuffy—in fact, playing dress up and making your way to the bar car is, we think, one of the coolest experiences anyone could have on a train. Plus, this train is always creating new ways to up the ante and retain its exclusive status: especially of note are the “Villeggiatura by Train” itineraries, a series of four-day journeys that combine slow, romantic travel with two-night stays at Belmond hotels including Villa San Michele, Caruso and Hotel Cipriani.

• 
  Should mention that just this 4-day trip mentioned in the final sentence costs around $10,000.
• Ah, but all those films and Agatha Christie.

To close, yesterday experienced Kilauea's 56th eruptive episode.  Quick for two reasons. Only lasted a few hours. Second, #55 was only a month ago.  Still, impressive.  Watch this video.

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DEMOCRACY RETURNS

I had several topics on my mind this morning when I sat down at my computer to create my daily post.

• Part 2 of my train series.  Maybe tomorrow.
• As Thursday is health day for me in this blog site, I have a couple of topics in my mind:  which supplement pills to take and why?; does one get less mentally stable with older age?; Part 5 on the science to stop and reverse aging; should you continue to get vaccinated?....and so on.  Well, they'll all come in the future.
• I decided, instead, to spend one more day meandering through that Blue America Tsunami.

But first, I noticed that Donald Trump again appeared on the cover of Time magazine.  Last month he broke the record of Richard Nixon.  With this latest, Trump has now been on the cover 57 times.  Click here to see the first 56 covers.

Why are Republic states given the color red, why are Democratic ones blue, swing states purple?  From Wikipedia:

• Our flag is red, white and blue.
• During the Civil War, maps showed Confederated movement using a blue pencil, with red for the Union.

• 
  Thus, Lincoln's Republican party was red.
• In 1904, The Washington Post used red for Republican states, Blue for Democratic states and Yellow for doubtful states.
• In 1976, John Chancellor, anchor for NBC Nightly News, asked the staff to light a state red when Democrat Jimmy Carter prevailed, and blue when Gerald Ford led or won.  The reasoning was that  in Great Britain, blue was used for conservatives and red for liberals.
• Yet, as late as 1996, color use remained mixed.
• 
  The contentious 2000 presidential election between W. Bush and Al Gore, ended up with the state of Florida counting ballots.  
• On election night on November 7, Florida had Bush leading Gore by only 1,784 out of 5,963,110 votes.

• 
  There was an automatic recount, so on November 8, the margin was only 900 votes.
• Then a statewide machine recount, which on November 10 gave Bush's lead of only 327 votes.
• Thus, a manual recount began on November 12.  All counties had to complete doing this by November 14.  That day, the Bush lead was 300 votes.

• 
  There were numerous court battle that began after election day.
• Overseas absentee ballot counting was completed on November 18, increasing Bush's lead to 930.
• On November 26, after most of the dust cleared, Bush was ahead by 537 votes.
• The Supreme Court on December 1 considered this matter.

• 
  From Google AI:  Ultimately, the election was finalized on December 12, 2000, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5–4 in Bush v. Gore to halt the ongoing Florida manual recounts due to inconsistent county-by-county standards. This allowed Florida's certified numbers to stand, making Bush the 43rd President of the United States. [1, 2, 3]
• Gore conceded on December 13.
• However, Google AI also said:  Under a hypothetical full statewide recount: If a comprehensive, statewide recount of all uncounted ballots (both undervotes and overvotes) had been conducted across all 67 Florida counties, Al Gore would have likely won the state, and consequently the presidency. [1]

• 
  Clearly, Florida leaned in the Bush direction through the whole ordeal.
• Actual popular vote:
• George W. Bush  50,456,002
• Al Gore  50,999,897
• My sense is that Gore deserved to be the victor.
• In any case, Florida arbitrarily used red for Republican states and blue for Democratic states.  This system prevails today.
• Why are swing states purple?  Mix red and blue and you get purple.

The U.S. Senate is now at 54 Democratic seats and 44 Republican.  Two races remain.

• Mississippi.  Democrat Scott Colom, Republican, Cindy Hyde-Smith, and Independent Ty Pinkins.  Remember, the winner does need to get more than 50%.  Don't bother with the details.  This recount process will linger for another week or so.  Watch the betting odds, and those spending their money look at things like who these final votes will go to.

• 
  Kalshi.
• Over $30.2 million has been bet on the race
• As of 1PM ET today, Kalshi has 97.3% of this vote.
• Polymarket
• $3.65 million bet, with Colom getting 97.2%.

• 
  Alaska.  Democrat Mary Peltola vs Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan and others.  This recount could take until the end of this month.  While Peltola had the early lead, more recent ranked-choice estimates now show Sullivan ahead.  Nevertheless....  Betting odds.
• Kalshi
• Peltola 94%
• Sullivan 6%
• Polymarket
• Peltola 95%
• Sullivan 7%

The House is not quite yet settled.

• At this writing, 251 Democrats and 155 Republicans.  32 seats not yet confirmed.
• 218 seats  needed for a majority vote.
• NBC News projects that the 120th Congress will have 259 Democrats and 176 Republicans, an 83-seat majority.
• Democrats had 263 seats in 1948 and 235 in 2018.  The first year that the House had 435 total seats was in 1913.

• 
  In short, looks like Democrats will have a 56-44 edge over Republicans in the U.S. Senate in the 120th Congress.  
• There are now a lot more disgruntled Republicans who just don't trust President Donald Trump.  
• Impeachment begins in the House only with a majority vote.  
• But the Senate requires two-thirds of the Senate, or 67 votes.  
• Will eleven Republican senators vote to impeach Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who will be the first to go?

Losers / mixed / winners:

• Losers.
• Republican party.
• Donald Trump.  Nuf said.
• Elon Musk.
• At least $474 million spent on races, with no victories, only alienation.
• He could lose perhaps a billion and more, when you count stock values and reduction of influence.
• His DOGE effort will undergo scrutiny.
• Not to worry, though, for he was the first trillionaire, and is still worth around $850 billion.
• The rich class, especially billionaires.
• 
  Mixed.
• Pollsters, for while they got things mostly right this time, no one predicted the extent of this Blue American Tsunami.
• I'm sure there are others.

• 
  Winners.
• Democratic party, by flipping both the U.S. House and Senate.
• People of color and the working class.  As there are supposedly 93 million "workers," counting the household, that means 288 million out of a total national population of 350 million.

• 
  Senator Jon Ossoff has become one of the frontrunners for the 2028 presidential election.
• Southern Democrats, especially Rep. James Talarico, who is quite the orator.
• There were some Democratic losers, but even they are now better positioned for 2028.

• 
  Democratic governors.
• 36 states held gubernatorial elections.
• Democrats flipped 6 governor's offices.
• Tally for 2027 will be 29 Democrats (from 24) and 20 Republicans (from 26).  
• Kansas still to be determined, although will 99% votes counted, Democrat Cindy Holscher has 549,974 votes and Republican Ty Masterson has 542,929, a lead of 7,045 votes.

• 
  Democrats made gains in state legislative chambers.
• Democratic women and minority victors.
• People who want the USA to remain a Democracy.
• Humanity and Planet Earth.

After this Blue American Tsunami, got to add this.  Today is World Tsunami Awareness Day.

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